ConcertPulse
Giovanni Antonini & Maria João Pires
Schubert was just sixteen years old when he began working on the first of his eight symphonies in 1813, the last of which he completed in 1825. At the age of nineteen, he began writing his Fourth, the “Tragic,” which moves from C minor to C major, i.e. from darkness to light – “per aspera ad astra.” The Fifth Symphony is even more optimistic, striving from the first bar towards a “brighter, better life” and a cheerful buoyancy that dissolves all melancholy. Incidentally, this is the closest Schubert ever got in his compositional output to the Mozartean ideal of beauty – as exemplified in the “Jenamy” Piano Concerto, “Mozart’s Eroica” (Alfred Einstein): original, virtuosic, and daring. Another highlight of this concert is the collaboration of Maria João Pires and Giovanni Antonini, two artists with whom the BRSO has a close relationship.
